Free The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon Page B

walk from the doorway to the bed seemed to take forever. Reggie’s boots slid on the freshly waxed floor like it was ice. Like she was ten again, back at Ricker’s Pond, skating toward her mother.
    She got to the edge of the bed and put a shaky hand on Vera’s shoulder. There was very little flesh there—Reggie could feel the knobby bones making the loose framework that held her mother together. Reggie was reminded of the Lincoln Logs she’d played with as a kid, putting several sets together to build a tower right up to the ceiling; a tower that leaned and swayed and eventually came crashing down to the ground. Vera’s arms were tucked under the covers, and Reggie found herself staring down at the shapes they made, trying to imagine the right one ending at the wrist. The blanket covering her was thin and white, the words PROPERTY OF UMASS MEDICAL CENTER stenciled in blue letters. Vera’s knees were bent, making a tent of the covers. The pillow beneath her head was damp and stained.
    Their eyes locked. Reggie turned her head slightly, pushed the hair away to reveal the scars around her prosthetic ear. Proof. Vera smiled, then whispered something Reggie didn’t catch.
    She leaned down. “What was that?”
    “You have to be careful here. People aren’t who they say they are. Like her.” She stared past Reggie at Carolyn Wheeler, who hovered in the doorway. “She knows Old Scratch.” Vera’s breath was warm and yeasty smelling. She was missing several teeth.
    “Would you like me to send her away?”
    Vera’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”
    Reggie smiled. “Just watch me.” She stood up, went over to the social worker, and asked if she and her mother could have some privacy. Carolyn looked flustered. Her eyes went from Vera to Reggie, then back to Vera. Was Reggie supposed to be untrustworthy? Dangerous even? Maybe she was in on it with Neptune?
    “Of course,” the social worker said at last. “I’ll be right down at the nurses’ station if you need me.”
    Reggie smiled sweetly but couldn’t think of a single situation in which she’d need Carolyn Wheeler. Reggie shut the door. She would have locked it if that had been possible.
    “Better?” she asked, returning to her mother’s side.
    Her mother. God, even though she was here, touching her, breathing her in, she couldn’t believe it. Vera, alive. Reggie did a quick calculation and realized her mother was fifty-nine years old. With her gaunt features and sagging skin, she looked closer to eighty. Was this the result of the cancer or years of hard living? What did it take, to break a person down like this? To turn them into a shrunken doll that only faintly resembled who they’d once been?
    Carolyn Wheeler seemed to think her mother’s mind was too far gone to be able to reveal anything helpful about the killer. But she must remember something, right? And whatever details she did remember weren’t likely to get spilled to strange-faced detectives or a social worker with broccoli in her teeth.
    “I’m going to take you home, Mom.”
    “Home?”
    “To Monique’s Wish. Would you like that?”
    Her mother looked up at her with watery gray eyes. “Is that where you live?”
    Reggie stiffened. Hell, no. Not for over twenty years.
    “No,” she said. “But I’ll stay with you there for as long as you like.” Reggie could see it so clearly: how she would bring her mother cups of tea and custard, and Vera would tell her all about what had really happened to her after she was taken. Reggie would get the answers the police hadn’t been able to. She’d crack the case wide open like a regular private detective, make sure that bastard got what was coming to him. If Reggie were in charge of the justice system, she’d have Neptune strapped to a table and give a big old carving knife to the relatives of the women he killed. An eye for an eye, a hand for a hand.
    “Mmm,” Vera said, closing her eyes. Then, she opened them wide. “They do things